Humble beginnings.
I got into candle making, honestly as a cost effective way to give people gifts at the holidays. I have a lot of extended family and I was spending a ton of money on what I thought were pretty crappy gifts, so I was looking into the things I could make myself that had more meaning behind them, and also save some money. That turned out to be candles!
So about 5 years ago now, I went to my grandparents house, in their basement, got all the supplies, and made a batch of about 50 really bad candles! But each year since, I’ve just tried to make a slight improvement in them. After probably year three, people started asking me if I sold them, at the time I didn’t, but thought, I can try and do that…I have an entrepreneurial spirit in me! The first year I tried to sell them, I sold out in 30 minutes. I ended up selling my gift inventory, so I had to make more and it just kept getting bigger and bigger. We moved production from the basement to my grandparents porch and now that I am married, I moved it to our living room which is affectionately referred to as ‘the candle factory’. God bless my wife.
37 - that number has always been special to me.
The name came from a combination of things…I played football in Long Valley, NJ growing up my whole life and when I went to West Morris Central, I wore number 37. Everyone used to call me Tree Sev, and that was kinda my thing, 37. That number has always been unique to me, it’s not a number that most people pick for things, and that’s why I picked it. But when I started making candles with my Pop Pop’s help - he was born in 1937, raised in Chester, NJ and moved out to Long Valley - ‘37 Candles’, that’s how the name came about.